Solitaire
by chi-zu
Summary: Post-Hell's Bells character study - Anya knows many things.


9/24/2002  
  
title: Solitaire  
Author: chi-zu chi-zufic@hotpop.com  
Spoilers: Through the end of season six  
Synopsis: character study - Anya has learned many things  
Disclaimer: Joss owns 'em. Not me. *cry*  
Distribution: Please ask me first.  
Notes: I'm looking for a good beta reader, please see my profile for more info. Thanks.  
  
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Anyanka knows about men. Men are feeble, changing, and follow their loins. Sure they smell nice and are pleasantly shaped, but they all leave you in the end. All honest relationships end broken, and then comes vengeance. She's borne witness to over a thousand years of courtship and she hasn't noticed a discernable difference in its patterns. Boy meets girl. Falls in love. Boy cheats on/leaves/otherwise misuses girl. Girl wreaks vengeance. All is right with the world.   
  
Men are easy. Some flirting, some exercise of the feminine wiles, a little red meat, and he was all yours. At least until the next girl showed up. That's what comes of being easy.  
  
Yes, Anyanka knows men.  
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Anya doesn't know how to be a girl. Suddenly locked in a prison of flesh and blood, her limbs are too long, ungainly. They refuse to do her bidding. Where once she was so malleable, she is now static, inert, and far too clumsy. Yet she doesn't think she is unattractive. Not at all. She's seen men look at her breasts. She's seen Xander look at her breasts. Despite herself, Anya likes this. It's novel to feel wanted, and she hasn't been wanted that way in a long time. Maybe once. With Dracula. But he was hardly selective, so Anya doesn't count it.  
  
Perhaps it wasn't so bad, this thing called love. Not if it was temporary, if you went into it with your eyes wide open. If you knew all paths eventually brought you to vengeance. Love and its perks were alright if you were willing to let them go, move on. Anya thinks that such a game will be easy once she remembers how to play it. She's certainly seen others do it enough. It's just a matter of playing at being a girl.  
  
She thinks back to books on deportment. It's been awhile since those were in fashion, but she remembers enough. And then there are those new tomes, Glamour and Elle and all of them bright and glossy lined up at the check-out counter. These will help her learn, remember all those pesky rituals people insist upon. She figures she can pick and choose the useful ones. Surely with all that she has seen, Anya can avoid all those pitfalls of other women. There is nothing she has not seen. It should be easy.  
  
So Anya reads and shops. Ruffles and flirty frills are feminine and they make her look pretty. Sequins are fun for dancing at the Bronze, but staider attire is more suited for the workplace--though not without a little something that will make it uniquely hers, her own personal style. So Anya makes sure to pick things in unusual cuts and patterns. Things that stand out. She fancies herself quite the fashion plate. Perhaps one day she will be nice and help Buffy with her wardrobe. Anya likes the way she looks. She knows Xander does too. All men love pretty women, and Anya is a pretty woman. She knows just how to show off that prettiness too. Soft bright colors, plunging necklines and fluttering ribbons. Cheerful, floral prints and dresses. Things a nice, respectable, feminine woman would wear.  
  
She experiments with her hair, brunette, blonde then blonder. Gentlemen prefer blondes. Women do these things. This is natural. It's also fun. Anya doesn't really remember her old hair color, before she was even Anyanka. All she knows is the color of Anya's hair, Anya, this juvenile incarnation which would hardly have been her first choice had she still been a demon. Someday she will look in the mirror and recognize herself, she feels sure of it. Until then, they've just come up with a new shade, Femme Fatale #6. She wonders what it would be like to be a femme fatale. Anya drops a box in her cart.  
  
Xander is so easy. The way he caves whenever she suggests that they copulate, it's sweet. Anya likes him, likes the way he makes her feel. She feels good with him, tingles, brighter, more special somehow. With him she is graceful, her limbs just the right length, and she knows just what to do with them. Xander has no problem running through the Kama Sutra with her, or Cosmo's latest tricks to spice up your sex life. Such handy things they write. Who knew there was so much one could do in bed? Hm. Spanking. Anya wonders if she will enjoy spanking. Perhaps she will suggest it to Xander next time. She's sure he'll be up for it. She knows how to please him, bind him to her with sex and ribbons. Wrap her legs around him and never let him go. He's so easy to figure out, like an open book. He is, after all, a man. She's open too. Why shouldn't she be? She knows what she wants, what he wants, why should they not have it? Marriage, children, money, maybe a boat. And sex. Lots of it. If Anya is going to be stuck on this plane, mortal, she'd be damned if she wasn't going to enjoy it. And there was no one else she enjoyed things with more than Xander.  
  
Still, Anya knows she is not perfect. She often forgets the silly rules she takes such pains to learn. In the heat of the moment she lets slip her impatience and earns Xander's embarrassed scoldings, chastised like a little girl. It's these flaws, these errors in judgment that make her fearful of losing him. Anya tries to do better, but there's Buffy who always seems to come first, and Willow who was always there and not always gay. Anya knows all too well of Willow's indiscretions. They are, after all, the reason she was brought here in the first place. She watches her and keeps an eye on what's hers. After all, her method isn't perfect yet. But Anya is confident in her ability to learn. Just a little more time and she'll be the perfect girl, and Xander will never leave her. She will never have to wreak vengeance on him.   
  
  
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Anya doesn't know what went wrong. She did everything she was supposed to do, pleased him, fought off those who would take him from her, and still he left. But she knows her mistake. Deep down, she knows that her mistake was in trying to hold onto him in the first place. She should have stayed true to what she knew. All honest relationships end in vengeance. Anya goes back to what she knows.  
  
Now, there's no need for ribbons. Foolish, foolish Anya. Anyanka prefers more sensible trappings. Plain, tailored, with collars that button all the way up her long neck. If Xander had never looked at her breasts this never would have happened. She keeps her power center hidden, out of sight. This is one lesson she has learned, and she heeds it well. She will not flaunt her power, but keeps it locked up behind buttons and lace where no one will tear it from her and break it. Anya will not be broken. So she binds herself tightly and does the work she is called to do. It's the honest thing, the true thing, and Anya will not deny this any longer. 


End file.
